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Superior Spidey continues to be an excellent read each issue, and I’m very impressed by how Dan Slott (who is joined by Christos Gage here) is always finding new and interesting wrinkles to an initially silly premise. In this issue we really see how taking over Peter Parker’s body isn’t all fun and games for Doctor Octopus. We as fans all know that Peter’s life was kind of fucked, even if he had been pulling himself together in Big Time, and it’s interesting to see Ock try and improve things. And hey, he’s actually doing it! He’s going to get a doctorate and his methods for fighting crime are a big step up from Peter’s amateurish attempts. As Ock says, Peter always did things the hard way. Now, we know this is because of ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, but it sure is interesting to see a Spider-Man who moves beyond that. It’s going to be quite something when (and it is a when, not an if) Peter actually comes back and finds out his life is much improved!

I love it when Ock goes on a big speech about how he is literally ‘superior’, I can just picture fanboys freaking out and Slott cackling with glee as he writes it.

The main plot of this issue hearkens back to when Peter was still Spider-Man, as the execution of Spider-Slayer for murdering Marla Jameson has finally arrived. This means a return to The Raft, and there were lots of fascinating little moments here. The scene where SpOck comes face to face with his old cell was fantastic, and I love how he combated Spider-Slayer’s escape attempt. It wasn’t outright stated, but it’s clear to me that the reason Spider-Man was so prepared for every avenue of escape was because he himself had spent time on the other side thinking of how to escape himself. This was a threat that Superior Spider-Man was better prepared to handle, if this was original recipe Spidey, Smythe would have probably gotten away.

I also like how Slott and Gage brought back the villains that SpOck has harshly dealt with such as Vulture and Boomerang as part of Spider-Slayer’s plan, in this book, what Spider-Man does has serious consequences and it’s all building. The art for this issue comes from one of the regular rotating guys on this book, Guiseppe Camuncoli, and he does his usual excellent work. I’ve been a fan of his since Joe Casey’s The Intimates (my username is taken from there in fact) and it’s really cool to see him now drawing one of the biggest books in comics.